Kanye West’s Childhood Home Found Trashed and Abandoned AFTER Rhymefest Bought It

Donda's House has yet to move forward

One year after Kanye West announced that he was buying his childhood home to turn it into a non-profit center for artistic children, the house sits abandoned and dilapitaded. According to a new story on The Daily Mail the house is surrounded by trash and drug paraphernalia. While this isn’t unusual for abandoned houses in major American cities, the fact that West had such lofty aspirations for it makes it notable.

West’s charity Donda’s House bought the home to make it an incubator of sorts for at-risk children with artistic talent. He announced the purchase via his lifelong friend and collaborator Rhymefest, who posed on the steps of the Chicago home as they announced their plans for it.

“I’m excited to announce the purchase of Kanye’s childhood home as a community Arts incubator,” Rhymefest wrote in an Instagram post,“ he said. “’It will be the first of our Nationwide Lite-Houses. A state of the art recording studio, a curriculum space for @dondashouse and southside music [museum].”

That was an awesome goal, but new photos obtained by The Daily Mail appear to show the home in a state of disrepair.

Source: Instagram @ravieb

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Lofty Goals

Source: Instagram @Rhymefest

Rhymefest explained the influence that Dr. Donda West had on his life and his rap career in a recent interview with The A.V. Club.

“When I would make raps as a young kid, and I’d be talking about how many people I shot, how many women I slept with, how much drugs I sold, she pulled me to the side and said: ‘Rhymefest, did you really sleep with that many women? I mean, I’m not judging. Did you really shoot that many people?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m just trying to get famous. That’s how you get on the radio. You got to talk about stuff you ain’t did, but it gives an image of who they believe you to be anyway.’ She said, ‘How would you feel if you and Kanye got real successful, which I don’t think will happen, because Kanye’s nuts, and I don’t believe anybody else will deal with him. But if you did get successful and get on the radio, how would you feel if they started to believe you were who you said you are? Can you be that person?’ And I was like, ‘I never thought about it. I just want to be famous.’ She’s like, ‘But can you be that? Because you’re going to have to live in the lie you told on yourself.’”

Rhymefest also added that he hoped that Donda’s House could replace archaic institutions in the Black community in Chicago.

“Chicago has had, and has, some of the greatest historic institutions of the world,” he said. “Where I believe black, African-American institutions continue to make mistakes is we don’t replace ourselves. So we have these old, rotten institutions.”

See The Photos

Credit: Everett Collection/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, it looks like the actual house at the heart of Donda’s House might already be suffering the same fate. Then again, considering the year that Kanye has had, it’s unsurprising that he hasn’t had the time to devote to revamping the space. With his wife falling victim to a violent robbery in October of 2016 and his own mental health issues bubbling over shortly after, we don’t think it’s entirely surprising that this particular endeavor fell to the wayside — even if he isn’t solely responsible for driving the project.

Hopefully they’ll revamp the property and get the program going in the coming months!

Check out the photos here.What do you think? Are Kanye’s plans in trouble? Or have they simply not started on their project yet? Sound off in the comments and be sure to SHARE this article.